Transformation of oxide ceramic textiles from insulation to conduction at room temperature

Oxide ceramics are considered to be nonconductive brittle materials, which limits their applications in emerging fields such as conductive textiles. Here, we show a facile domino-cascade reduction method that enables rapid transformation of ceramic nanofiber textiles from insulation to conduction at room temperature. After putting dimethylacetamide-wetted textiles, including TiO2, SnO2, BaTiO3, and Li0.33La0.56TiO3, on lithium plates, the self-driven chemical reactions induce defects in oxides. These defects initiate an interfacial insulation-to-conductive phase transition, which triggers the domino-cascade reduction from the interface to the whole textile. Correspondingly, the conductivity of the textile sharply increased from 0 to 40 S/m over a period of 1 min. The modified oxide textiles exhibit enhanced electrochemical performance when substituting the metallic current collectors of lithium batteries. This room temperature reduction method can protect the nanostructures while inducing defects in oxide ceramic textiles, appealing for numerous applications.